The Admiral
on board and threw themselves down, remaining in a sort of
torpor for over an hour.
The creek was fringed with mangrove, behind which was a rice
plain and low hills. Lying a little back was a rock face on which
to-day are still to be seen the reliefs which King Min Bin had
carved a hundred years before when on his way to invade Bengal.
Urrittaung was twenty miles to the north-east. By climbing a tree
they might have seen, had the weather lifted, the spire of its
pagoda which is on a hill. Evening came on. The boatmen, though
somewhat restored, were unable to do more than eat their rice
and fall asleep. But the place being notorious for tigers, so bold
that they would board a galley lying close to the shore, even swim
out a distance to pull a man off, it was necessary to mount a guard
with muskets, and this the servants did, taking their turns all night.
Dawn saw them upon their way. Turning into a creek on their
right, they sped along on the tide, the monsoon cloud still shroud-
ing the landscape. In the course of the morning they reached the
Urrittaung custom-house. From there a messenger was sent to the
Admiral of the Fleet, for they had decided to call on him before
proceeding to Court, tell him their mission, and beg him to delay
his departure pending the King's decision.
The Admiral sent a guardship to bring them to his camp, which
was on the bank of the Kaladan river, the fleet being moored just
off shore. It was a comfortable camp, the various quarters being
small pavilions of bamboo, thatched with palm leaves and walled
with mats, clean and smart, for they were quite new. In the most
elegant of these pavilions they found the Admiral.
The Augustinian friars had a certain reputation in those re-
gions, arising, no doubt, from their strict life and genuine piety.
The present king, Thiri-thu-dhamma, it is true, had allowed none
to settle at his capital, not for reasons of religious intolerance, but
because, it would seem, he thought it politically undesirable that
the various Catholics in his dominion should be united as a body,
with a church and so, possibly, an organization, which might be
used for spying. But an individual friar, particularly of the stand-
ing and education of Manrique, could count on a more respectful
reception than could a layman. This explains why in the first
instance the Catholics of Mrauk-u had written direct to him and
why Captain Tabao had insisted on his coming.
The interview with the Admiral opened with the presentation
by the Portuguese of Chinese silk and spices*
118